Tea Horse Road (茶馬古道) – A Glimpse of the Ancient Odyssey

Route of Tea Horse Road

Since the heydays of Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), time often elapsed with throngs of horse caravans wading through the endlessly steep road.  Across undulating hill chains and meandering rivers of the mountain Range, women of Bulang ethnic group were picking pu’er tea leaves, a distinct form of broad leaf tea in Yunnan, in a verdant agro-forest.  Besides the four-foot-wide cobblestone paths, scraggy porters were carrying backbreaking loads of freshly-made tea in this legendary trail, a harsh 2,250km trail stretching from the hillside plantation of Xishuangbanna in Yunnan to Tibet’s capital city of Lhasa, and from there to Southeast Asia, before reaching to the Indian subcontinent.